End-times mania and wild-eyed apocalyptic predictions have long been a staple in certain sectors of the Protestant world. In addition to the more mainstream Protestant prognosticators who have made a very comfortable living off their end-times related books and broadcasts (e.g., Hal Lindsey, Jack Van Impe, and Tim LaHaye, to name but three of the more prominent ones), groups which derive from Protestantism, such as Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, also spend an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to map out the contours of the rise of the Man of Sin and the dire happenings described in the Bible, especially the Book of Revelation.

Lots of contradictory and conflicting predictions result, but the one thing that all of these groups have in common is their fixation on the Catholic Churh as being the fulcrum of end-times activity. This new article by a leader in the Philadelphia Church of God continues in that vein:

Is Germany’s Charlemagne About to Appear?

As I write this article, Germany is just weeks from electing a new chancellor. That election and events to unfold from it are going to bring devastating consequences to this world. A dangerous political structure has been built in the European Union, and it’s about to get a lot worse. History thunders its strongest warning ever! It’s time that people understood that history.

But there is a lot more than history involved in understanding European politics.

What is happening in the European superstate is a mystery to most of the world. But that mystery is beginning to be removed.

Bernard Connolly wrote a bombshell book in 1995 titled The Rotten Heart of Europe. For years he served at the heart of the Exchange Rate Mechanism for the European Union. He headed the commission unit responsible for monitoring and servicing the system. He labels the European superstate as rotten. Since he had a vital job on the inside, his comments deserve our attention.

The Spirit of Charlemagne

“It is the battle for control of the European superstate,” Mr. Connolly wrote, “in which French technocrats confront German federalists, both sides claiming to fight under thebanner of Charlemagne. The ‘collateral damage’ from this battle lies mainly in the future, but it could be ghastly” (emphasis mine throughout).

“It could be ghastly.” That is an understatement!

Who will get control of this great superstate? And just how ghastly is it going to be? The battle can be narrowed down to two nations—France and Germany. Do knowledgeable people really doubt who has already won this battle? The nation that controls the money will reign supreme. Of course, that has already proven to be Germany.

“Across the Rhine, successive German governments have, in their pursuit of a ‘European’ cloak for German ambitions, been prepared to accept an apparent cession of national monetary authority—as long as the new European monetary authority looks, sounds, smells and acts exactly as the German monetary authority now does” (ibid.).

The EU system has already been called a Trojan horse. Mr. Connolly says it is a “cloak for German ambitions.”

Just what are those ambitions? And why should every person on Earth be deeply concerned?

Otto von Habsburg was one of the key figures in creating the European Union. He had this to say about that union: “The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live.”

Twenty-seven countries are members of the EU today. Most of them don’t know that they are “living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire.” It is a mystery to them.

According to Bible prophecy, the number of member nations or groups of nations will be reduced to 10 rulers. There are simply too many nations in the EU now for the Union to be ruled in the spirit of Charlemagne. Only after it has been severely reduced in member countries can the Holy Roman Empire function as it has in its extremely bloody past.

Mr. Habsburg also said, “We possess a European symbol which belongs to all nations of Europe equally; this is the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which embodies the tradition of Charlemagne.”

Just what is “the tradition of Charlemagne”? It is far from what most people think it is—even Europeans!

Charles the Great

The Franks were the first barbaric tribe to embrace Catholicism, but it was for political gain, not religious reasons. Mostly of Germanic origin, the Franks used the Catholic Church to support their expansionist policies, while the church relied on Frankish rulers for protection. It was a union based on politics alone.

The Frankish kingdom reached the pinnacle of its power during the rule of Charlemagne (Charles the Great). Before Charlemagne’s emergence as world ruler, the political scene in Europe was greatly divided. Germany was sliced into many different tribes. Much of Italy was occupied by the Lombards. Byzantium was recognized as the successor to the eastern region of the old Roman Empire. Charlemagne, in conjunction with the papal throne, eventually changed all that—but not without much bloodshed.

Historians call his rule the First Reich—even though Charlemagne was the second ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. Adolf Hitler’s rule became known as the Third Reich.

Charlemagne felt it his duty to defend the church. In 774, at the request of Pope Leoiii, he entered northern Italy and conquered the Lombard kingdom, uniting Italy for the first time in centuries. In 799, he again came to the aid of the pope, who was assaulted, brutally beaten, and thrown into prison by a band of conspirators. With the military backing of Charles and his Frankish troops, the pope was exonerated of all wrongdoing and reinstated to his ecclesiastic office.

The following year, in Rome, while Charlemagne was kneeling in prayer during a Christmas celebration inside old St. Peter’s Church, the pope placed a crown upon his head, pronouncing him “the 73rd emperor of the fourth world empire.”

At this point, we should note that throughout the Middle Ages, many scholars, theologians, even popes, knew the Roman Empire was the fourth world-ruling kingdom.Many of them even identified this fourth kingdom with the one Daniel spoke of in his prophecy (see Daniel 2:37-43). That’s why Europeans and Catholics kept trying to revive the empire! The Bible said there would only be four such empires. However, the fourth empire would have 10 resurrections, according to Bible prophecy. The last seven of those resurrections would be called Holy Roman Empires, because they were ruled by church and state.

As king of the Franks, Charlemagne was able to subjugate every single German tribe but one: the Saxons. The Saxons clung to their own faith and refused, even on pain of death, to submit to Roman Catholicism. Charlemagne determined to force his brand of Christianity on them with the sword. For years the Saxons obstinately resisted. At one point, out of sheer frustration, Charlemagne executed 4,500 Saxon prisoners. This barbarous act angered the Saxons even more.

It took 30 years for Charles to completely extinguish the “Saxon” problem, but not before multiple thousands had been executed for their religious beliefs. After more than 18 conquests against the Saxons, Charles finally prevailed. In the end, Saxons either subjected themselves to the rule of Charles, or their defiance ended in death.

The Holy Roman Empire has never been democratic. It could never be. Even Pope Pius xiisaid the church had twin enemies: the democracies and communism. He was pope at the peak of Communist power.

As emperor of the “Holy” Roman Empire, Charles felt it his duty to spread the Christian faith using whatever means necessary. The New Encyclopedia Britannica says, “The violent methods by which this missionary task was carried out had been unknown to the earlier Middle Ages, and the sanguinary [bloody] punishment meted out to those who broke canon law or continued to engage in pagan practices called forth criticism in Charles’ own circle” (“Charlemagne, Emperor”).

The violence Charlemagne used to enforce the Catholic religion on his subjects was simply unknown in earlier empires! He forced his brand of Christianity on everyone. His empire may have had distinct ties to the ancient Romans, but it was certainly not “holy”—even if there was a great church guiding it.

And yet, for centuries to come, the aim of succeeding emperors was to restore the traditions of Charlemagne in their quest to revive the Roman Empire!

Even today, Germany and a great church are working to restore the tradition of Charlemagne. They have almost completed the structure. Still, it is a mystery to most of the world’s inhabitants.

Let the world beware! That power structure is ready to burst on the world scene—again!

Charlemagne’s bloody conquests were the worst ever in the history of the previous empires. The conquests of the next Holy Roman Empire are going to be the worst suffering ever inflicted on human beings in the history of man! (Matthew 24:21-22; Daniel 12:1; Jeremiah 30:1-10).

It will all be done in the spirit of Charlemagne. Most people won’t awaken out of their stupor until it’s too late! . . .

When the Holy Roman Empire was at its peak, there was a running joke among the nobility of the era. They said that its name was a misnomer: it wasn’t an empire, it wasn’t Roman, and it certainly wasn’t holy.

I think they have things backwards. Charlemagne created the Holy Roman Empire, which became an utterly meaningless and impotent bureaucracy as soon as he died, that managed to survive almost to modern times, only finally being officially ended in 1806.

Well, the Europeans have created a replacement for the HRE, which is showing signs of becoming as meaningless and useless as its predecessor, and they did it without Charlemagne.

This is amusing, but I think it’s a little ungallant of Mr. Madrid to go picking on Rev. J. Random Dispensationalist from Nobodyever Heardofit Church of God.

The sun rises, the baby needs a new diaper, and some pastor is in a to-do about the European Community. I saw this movie.

I also read the whole article and can’t figure out what the pastor thinks the new German Chancellor is going to do that so much worse than “ghastly.” What is much, much worse than ghastly, anyway? Ghastly is pretty strong!

9
posted on 09/07/2009 5:01:39 PM PDT
by Tax-chick
("This is our duty: to zot their sorry arses into the next time zone." ~ Admin Mod)

When the German Roman Empire was at its peak (say, 1180s or so), no one told this stupid joke because “Holy Roman Empire” was first used in the 1600s, after the Empire had become an empty shell (it collapsed about 1250 and was replaced on the European stage by the rising consolidated kingdoms of France and England; the title continued but it became the basis for the Habsburg house dynasty, which itself split into two branches, one in the nation-state of Spain (and the Netherlands), the other in Austria, eventually the Austro-Hungarian empire).

Holy Roman Empire is a modern term. The actual medieval empire was Frankish under Charles the Great then shifted to the eastern, German, portion of what had been Charles’s realm. It was really established as the German Kingdom/Roman Empire by Otto I ca. 950 and lasted to about 1250. It covered German and northern Italy. At the end it also added southern Italy and Sicily briefly. The elected king of the Germans also held the title of Roman Emperor (since Charlemagne).

So the joke is one of those modern anti-medieval snotnosed jibes at a supposed evil medieval past.

There were no bureaucracies in the Middle Ages. They didn’t have the technical ability to be bureaucracies. And Charlemagne’s empire was divided after his death among his three grandsons but the eastern third of it was transformed into a real empire by the Ottonian kings in the 900s.

And “Holy” was not used for either Charles’s or the German-Italian empire at all.

“When the Holy Roman Empire was at its peak, there was a running joke among the nobility of the era. They said that its name was a misnomer: it wasnt an empire, it wasnt Roman, and it certainly wasnt holy.”

Actually, the saying is from Voltaire. He invented it in 1756 - about 50 years before the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved.

Madrid points people to such insanity, but doesn’t debunk it, probably thinking its ridiculousness is obvious to his readers. For lurkers, however:

The Holy Roman Empire wasn’t a single empire. Such was a designation given several empires which received the political designation from the papacy as being something the papacy supported politically. Habsburg, mentioned in the article, was pretender to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire, which was also called the Holy Roman Empire. Certainly, Hitler’s intent in using the propagandist name, “3rd Reich” was not to align himself with the papacy; Hitler was a neo-pagan who favored the Lutheran Church (out of politics, not his own faith; lacking an external power structure, it was easier to dominate.) Rather, it was to cast Germans as the true Romans (Rome, contrary to the quoted article’s implications, was supposed to be the first Reich). The Christian Church, argued Hitler, was a Jewish-led bastardization of the ancient, Germanic faith of Aryanism.

So who is the Habsburg who the author insinuates is trying to build a 4th Reich? For starters, Otto von Habsburg was a fervent anti-Nazi who was condemned to death by Hitler. The invasion of Austria was code-named “Otto” because they expected a movement to place Habsburg on the throne of Austria, which would trigger their immediate invasion to oust him.

Such kook groups probably don’t have any influence on the European Union, but if anything, they probably help ensure that the EU rejects any ties to a common, Christian heritage. Further, although certain early leaders in the pan-European movement clearly did hope to construct an entity which would greatly feel the influence of the Catholic Church, if anything the EU has an anti-clerical, anti-Christian, anti-Catholic bend to it.

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